


if you

by jiminie



Category: NU'EST, Produce 101 (TV), Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-05-31 13:19:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,668
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19426780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jiminie/pseuds/jiminie
Summary: Minhyun was trying to be okay with missing his members - but then Jonghyun went and wrote a song about him.or produce x 101 made me nostalgic for the most iconic series, so i did a rewatch, listened to if you for a week straight and cried a lot. this is the result.





	if you

Overall, Minhyun thinks he does a pretty good job of not crying.

There are lots of reasons he shouldn’t cry - he’s had incredible good luck and fortune and Wanna One is exciting and fun and different and he’s honestly very thankful for where he is. 

He just misses his members.

But he doesn’t cry about it, not even when he’s alone at night in the new dorms. Maybe his tears got cried out of him and he left them in the restaurant, soaked into Aron’s shoulder because while Dongho gives the best hugs, Aron gives the most. Gave the most. Will give the most. Minhyun’s not sure how to think about it.

He doesn’t get much time to think about it - they barely catch their breath after the end of Produce before they start preparations for a comeback and for that there can be no tears, only sweat. And there is a lot of sweat. Energetic is like nothing he’s danced to before. It’s not a Nu’est song. Somehow that makes it easier and as time goes on, they all begin to rub the corners off their various puzzle pieces and fit into the mold of Wanna One. It’s liberating in a way, he thinks once - and then immediately feels guilty, trying something new is liberating. 

Because it’s different being one of the oldest members. Having members of different ages is strange as well - Guanlin is six years younger than him and sometimes it’s terrifying but mostly he loves it. Jinyoung, Daehwi, Jihoon, Woojin, Guanlin - they’re so young (Minhyun wonders how Jisung must feel) and his urge to mother them a bit is welcomed. It’s more liberating somehow, he feels like himself again. New but the same. He finds spaces to ground the pillars of himself amongst the others, all of them trying to do the same thing - he cleans the dorm, and sings to himself in the shower and while everything has changed, he doesn’t feel like he has - at least not much.

Then they’re rushing around filming and it’s two weeks before they debut, two weeks before he debuts again and he feels like he’s running on adrenaline and he can see from the wildness in the others eyes that they are too. This is it - what they’ve fought tooth and nail for, shed so much sweat for. What he’s left them behind for. 

Their names feel like static in his brain, like he can’t look at them or think of them directly because he’s afraid of what might happen. The fact he’s still on a phone ban helps a little, disuages the guilt, stops him from fulfilling the desire to know what’s going on without him there - it feels strange, them all living without him there. He wonders what it’s like living with a Minhyun shaped hole - is it hard? He selfishly hopes it is. Minhyun knows they love him, knows at the end of the day it’s always him and them. But still - it feels like this is the moment of truth. 

Or, more accurately, the moment of truth is 6pm Tuesday, 25th July 2017, two days before their phone band ends.

It’s Daehwi who shows Minhyun, a few hours after kissing his phone in celebration of having it returned to him. Daniel had been a similar way, shuffling off to call his parents, while Jihoon and Woojin started taking selcas. Minhyun hadn’t even turned his on.

“Hyung, you’re going to want to see this,” he says, and normally that means either one of them has actually cleaned something up and Daehwi wants him to be proud of them, or Jaehwan has got his hand stuck in something again, but rather than dragging him off his bunk Daehwi, just passes Minhyun his phone.

**_NU’EST Unit NU’EST W Releases Special Single, “If You”_ **

Minhyun feels his chest constrict. The room suddenly feels like it’s full of sawdust rather than air and he dare not breathe in. There’s something curdling in his stomach that feels like the adrenaline that’s always there before he goes on stage but is much, much worse. He feels afraid.

“Oh,” is all he says, and to his own ears it sounds normal. Minki always said he can never tell when Minhyun’s upset. 

“It’s really good. You should listen to it.” Listen to it? Minhyun wants to absorb it into his being, we wants to hold it in two hands and say I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. He wants to never see it again.

“Maybe later?” he replies, trying to smile at Daehwi, because if there was anytime in his life he wishes there was no audience, no one to look or film or anything, it would be now. 

“Did you know they were releasing it?” Daehwi asks.

“No,” he lies, well half lies. He knew they’d release something, he made them promise. He’d taken Jonghyun’s hand in his and squeezed so hard he thought he might break it and made him promise that they would keep going. But he hasn’t been in contact since. He’s had radio silence - not his fault or theirs, but even so. Subconsciously he thought that he’d be taking the first step out into the unknown. Right now it just feels like they’re taking a step away from him. 

“It’s doing well. Like really well, its reached number 2.”

Number 2. Number 2. He can feel his eyes beginning to sting.

“That’s amazing,” he says, unable to stop his voice cracking a little. Daehwi looks at him a little shocked, unsure of what to do.

“Well, I’ll let you listen to it,” he smiles awkwardly, dragging Jaehwan off his bunk, shushing his protests. The door presses shut and the room is left silent. Too silent. Forced. The claustrophobia eats at Minhyun’s skin. He wants to rip out of it and run. 

Half formed thoughts carry him through finding a pair of socks and a jacket and, shoving his phone in his pocket, he noiselessly puts on his shoes and leaves the dorm, letting the happy noise of Seongwoo and Daniel chasing each other around the kitchen fade away. 

The thrumming of the early evening is less comforting than he thought it would be. He feels lonely and overcrowded at the same time. Like someone’s missing but if anyone else were to be there there would be too many.

Minhyun misses them. Minki. Dongho. Aron.

Jonghyun.

He misses them so much it hurts.

His fear seems to crumble then, and he’s filled with a burning desire to hear them. Music is, as always, one step closer to home. 

Minhyun silently walks around the back of their building to where there’s a concrete bench and a square of grass before it meets the wall which fences off the bins. Noises are softer here, cushioned by the concrete and it feels like the most privacy he’s had since before Produce. Minhyun is still close enough to the dorm that his phone picks up their wifi network and the coolness of the bench bleeds his tension out of him as he sits down. The earphones in his ears make the sound of him swallowing seem loud and strange and his palms are getting sweaty.

He just needs to bite the bullet.

‘If You’, he types in - ‘if you’ what? He supposes he’ll find out. 

  1. NU’EST W - If You - 3:27



The double u seems to stare him down, a reminder that this is how it is now. At the moment there is no Nu’est. Everything is on hold. It’s a happier thought than it used to be, but there’s a bitterness still. Minhyun presses play.

“If you, if I could tell you about my longing for you, that grows like hair,” Minki sings to him softly, and Minhyun feels a tension gather at his eyes, “if you, if I could see you, your eyes, darker than the night sky.”

A ballad of longing. A sad song. An I-miss-you song. Of course it is. There’s a comfort in it, a relief, an ‘I miss you too’. He wants to see them, hear Minki’s voice in person, watch him and Aron bicker, or tease him with Dongho. Minki’s ferocity is something he’s missed as well - Daehwi is hilarious but Minki takes the piss in a way that makes it so fun, even when everything seemed desolate and like they’re days as Nu’est were numbered. He closes his eyes, letting his head fall back against the rough brickwork.

Then the beat changes and it’s like the world is pulled from underneath him for the second time in two months.

“If it could be in a film that I missed until now, if it could be in our memories that passed by, I’ll dive in and swim, your scent is deeply embedded, so the emptiness becomes a boat for me,” Jonghyun’s words wash over him, into him, and God, Minhyun had missed his voice so much. It’s something you get used to, hearing someone’s voice everyday, recording the same lines a thousand times, spending hours talking about nothing waiting for music shows, letting Jonghyun’s commands in the practice room become Minhyun’s own thoughts when his body is so tired his brain goes on strike. Hearing his laugh when they come home at 3am and he still watches his anime because Jonghyun is steadier than a rock - never shifting but always evolving into something stronger.

“We’ll do well,” Jonghyun said, his hot breath on Minhyun’s neck, and arms tight around him as they all hold each other, the body heat of all five of them making the June air impossibly hotter. Somehow, he still manages to make that ‘we’ sound like it means all five of them. Minhyun believed him - still does. Jonghyun’s voice is just like that. Honest and trustworthy. It’s what makes him a good leader, part of it anyway, Minhyun muses. Jonghyun says things and you trust them, good or bad, you know he’s saying what he thinks need to be said. The way he makes Minhyun feel - he can’t quite put his finger on it, but Minhyun can’t think of a better feeling.

“After I let you go, I think of you, and stupidly it still feels like a dream,” Jonghyun says, voice soft yet strong and Minhyun feels weightless, “I’ll keep your spot empty - I want to put away the goodbyes for now.” 

Goodbye. That wasn’t fun. Minhyun prides himself on being pretty unshakeable, pretty easy going. Not much gets to him. But the butterflies ate at his stomach all day until he felt sick. And the crying made him feel drained, like the tears just wouldn’t stop. And since the Produce final, blocking them out of his head helped, but it was a bandage on a bruise and the ache didn’t go away. Its fading now. 

“I wanna, wanna turn back the time we had,” Aron sings and it always makes Minhyun smile when he sings in English, his voice, gentle and warm, “Memories fall like stars, I am tired of wandering and staggering through that shining time.” The words are beautiful, and they bring a serenity to Minhyun that he hadn’t realised he’d been missing, a companionship. They’d all missed Aron during Produce, somehow without him there it felt even closer to the end of everything. Aron’s words ring true, it was exhausting. Even in all its bright moments, there was a tiredness that sometimes would overtake them all. Even with that though, he’d do it all again, every second.

“How nice would it be if I could reach you, even in my dreams, if I could stay one more night - 

like a novel, like a lie, if only we can meet again and smile brightly.” Dongho’s voice is soothing and warm and he can almost feel him next to him. Minhyun misses his warmth, his laugh, his gentleness. To begin with, it had been amusing how Mnet had edited him - big, scary Kang Dongho. But after awhile it began to feel draining, like Produce was taking something from them it Minhyun didn’t even know could be taken.

“Even though we walk in different paths, let's walk on the same time. Even if we look at different views, we look at the same sky. We are drawn on the same canvas, but your colour isn’t filled in.” 

The melody is pretty and sweet, it’s the kind of song that Minhyun likes to sing the most - it’s honestly quite strange, he’s had songs written for him to sing before, parts created to suit his voice, but no one’s ever written a song for him like this. About him. About them. It’s a bit surreal, hearing how his friends see him from the outside in.

“If only I could see you again, if only I could smile with you; if only we could hold hands in this dream - how nice would it be? I wouldn’t let go.” Minhyun for the first time, feels like he’s listening to something he shouldn’t be, like he’s reading someone’s diary. Even though it was written for him to hear. Strange. Perhaps it’s because of how intimate it feels. Too honest. He can feel his cheeks beginning to heat up. 

“If only we could walk together again - I haven’t forgotten your beautiful voice; your smiling face is vivid in my memories.”

Minhyun had been doing so well, he thinks, as hot tears begin to slide down his face. Not one single tear, until now. 

“I miss you, I miss you, I really miss you,” Jonghyun says, a whisper in the dark. 

“I miss you too,” he wants to reply. “I miss you all.”

“That’s not what I mean,” says Jonghyun in his head. Because these words are Jonghyun’s. And they are about Minhyun. Things they’ve never said. Can’t say. Minhyun’s never really dated anyone, but he remembers years ago when he read through some fanfiction he found, wondering what it would be like to date a member. Very easy, was his conclusion, afterall - he loves them already. Easy and strange. How much would have changed? Maybe he’d be allowed to hold hands while driving home in the van and have it mean what he wanted it to. Maybe he’d be able the kiss the blush that appears on Jonghyun’s cheeks every time Minhyun calls him handsome. Maybe he’d be able to write songs about Jonghyun and tell him every word is about him. Maybe when he said ‘I love you’ he’d be able to mean it the way he has for far too long. 

They’ve always been good at not talking about it. Sometimes Minhyun would feel like he’d been imagining it all for years, all the lingering glances and finding any excuse to touch each other. Other times he’d feel like they were both inches away from snapping and actually doing something about their _thing_. But the moment always seemed to pass and everything would carry on as if nothing had happened. In a way it felt like holding back was a away of keeping them, Nu’est, afloat, that if they made anything concrete, it would sink them.

But now - now Jonghyun has written a song about how much they miss him - about how much he misses Minhyun. How much he wants him to come home.

“Yes, I miss you, particularly,” Minhyun replies, finally, “Happy?”

The song ends and night says nothing. 

“Yes?” says Jonghyun when Minhyun calls him, and it’s like coming home. He can just imagine Jonghyun sitting in bed, swaddled up in blankets, hair cute and fluffy and his heart beats a little faster.

“Hey - its me,” he smiles, and he can feel his heart hammering, “I heard your song.”

“Ah,” Jonghyun replies in that carefully neutral way that he’s mastered, but Minhyun can still hear a slight breathlessness in his voice. He’s nervous, Minhyun realises, and every inch of his body just wants to hold him.

“I liked it. I really liked it.” He hears Jonghyun breathe a shuddering sigh.

“Good,” he says and Minhyun can picture his gentle smile as he speaks, “that’s good.”

“I miss you too,” Minhyun says, and while Jonghyun knows what he really means, the way he always does, this time it's not enough, “I’ve missed you a lot.”

“To be fair, I think this is the longest we’ve not been all together since we met,” Jonghyun jokes.

“That’s not what I mean,” says Minhyun and he can feel his pulse beating in his ears, “well it is. I miss you all, but I miss you.”

“Ah,” Jonghyun says again, and Minhyun can feel his confidence waning a little. But he has to do this - he needs to do this now.

“I miss you a lot,” he admits and a nervous laugh escapes him, “so much it hurts sometimes.” 

“I forgot to ask, how’s it been?” Jonghyun asks, which is sweet but Minhyun’s not telling this go this time. 

“Fun. Different. It’s strange being without you.” 

“I’ll pass on the message,” Jonghyun laughs and Minhyun just wants to grab hold of him and look him in the eye so he can’t keep evading this. 

“That’s not what I mean,” Minhyun says, trying to keep his tone light, stop his voice from shaking, but he feels more scared now that he has since they debuted, “you know that’s not what I mean.”

There’s a crackling silence.

“Jonghyun?”

“I’m still here. I just don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t know what to say?” Minhyun says, maybe a little too hotly, “you write a song about me but you don’t know what to say?”

“I-” Jonghyun starts but then goes silent.

“Because it is about me, isn’t it?” Minhyun says, almost pleadingly because what if he’s wrong? What if it really all has been in his head? He can feel his eyes starting to prick again. 

“I- its - I mean,” Jonghyun stammers but stops himself, “yes. It’s about you.”

The confirmation pulls the air from Minhyun’s lungs.

“Good,” he says, echoing Jonghyun, “that’s good.”

“When interviewers ask me I have to say I was thinking about the feelings of L.O.V.E.s. But I don’t know how many of them have believed me,” Jonghyun says, laughing a little at himself and it’s just so Jonghyun, so effortlessly cute that Minhyun just wants to hold him tight and not let go, “they know how much we all miss you.”

“Where are you right now?” Minhyun says in lieu of a response.

“The dorms - why?” Jonghyun says, sounding confused, “wait, you wanna meet up?” 

“Well yeah.”

“I don’t know if that’s allowed.” Minhyun sighs.

“Jju-ya,” he says, “why did you write a song about me?”

“Because I miss you, wasn’t I clear enough?” Jonghyun jokes but Minhyun can hear his voice shaking.

“Is that - is that everything?” he asks back and he feels like he’s on the edge of a knife, “Because I miss you too. But its not - it’s not everything for me.”

“Oh,” Jonghyun says but Minhyun can’t think about that what that means because he needs to say this - its been burning a hole in his chest for far too long.

“Because I miss you so much all the time. And I dream about you. I feel like a part of me is missing because you’re not with me. And I’m tired of pretending it’s just because we’re friends. Because you’re all I think about. Even when I don’t want to think about you I end up thinking about you.” Jonghyun laughs a little at this, and Minhyun feels his stomach flip, “I think about you all the time. I have for so long now, that I don’t think I could ever stop.”

“I love you,” Jonghyun says, voice thick with tears and crackly down the phone line and it brings Minhyun’s own tears in lines down his face, “I’m in love with you, Minhyunnie.”

Jonghyun loves him. Jonghyun _loves_ him. _Jonghyun_ loves him.

“That’s good,” Minhyun smiles through his tears, “because I’m in love with you too.”

“Copycat,” Jonghyun laughs.

“You’re the copycat,” Minhyun retorts, “you hijacked my confession.”

“Well I’m very sorry - how can I make it up to you?”

“Hmmm,” Minhyun smiles, because he doesn’t think he’s ever going to stop smiling, “write me another song?” Jonghyun laughs.

“Okay,” he smiles “I’ll try my best for you.”

“Good, I shall be expecting it.”

There’s a warm silence.

“What do we do now?” Jonghyun breathes.

“What do you mean?”

“Like, do we date? Are you going to ask me out with flowers and everything?”

“I mean-” Minhyun starts.

“Good,” Jonghyun says and Minhyun can hear the grin in his voice, “I shall be expecting it.”

“I love you,” Minhyun says again because he does, because he can. He loves Jonghyun. Jonghyun loves him.

“I love you too,” Jonghyun replies, “and because I love you, I think you should go to sleep.”

“Alright Mr Leader,” Minhyun rolls his eyes, “only if you do.”

“Deal,” Jonghyun smiles, “also Minhyun?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you.”

“I love you too,” Minhyun grins.

“I’m going to hang up now.”

“Then hang up.”

“I’m doing it.”

“Then why are you still talking to me?”

“I don’t know, it’s your fault.”

“I mean I am irresistible,” Minhyun grins.

“Wow.... I’m going now goodnight.”

“Then go.”

“I am.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well you’re distracting me.”

“I’m sorry.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

“Minhyun. I love you. Go to sleep,” Jonghyun says, voice disgustingly fond.

“Okay. I love you too,” Minhyun replies.

“Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Minhyun says finally and then Jonghyun’s voice disappears. 

Even though Jonghyun’s not there he still feels lighter, happier. He feels like he could sing at the top of his lungs and, while he doesn’t do that, he still feels invincible.

That’s what Jonghyun makes him feel. Invincible.

Alright, Jonghyun, Minhyun thinks, making his way back up the stairs, we can put away the goodbyes for a while - I’ll wait until I can walk with you again.

**Author's Note:**

> everyone: hey when r u gonna update ur fics ur writing
> 
> me: publishes another fic no one asked for or wanted 
> 
> but yee thank you for reading if u have any comments or constructive criticism please let me know i ho[pe u enjoyes and feel free to read some of my other nonsense lol


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